DEAR BENJAMIN BANNEKER. By Andrea Davis Pinkney. Illustrated. Gulliver Books. 32 pages. $14.95.
THE ARMADILLO FROM AMARILLO. By Lynne Cherry. Illustrated. Gulliver Books. 34 pages. $14.95
WE LEARNED THIS past week that there are plans to build the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park on land he once farmed in Oella in Baltimore County. That's bound to stir interest in Banneker (1731-1806), who was probably the most successful black person in the western hemisphere in the 18th century. Born free, he taught himself astronomy, mathematics, mechanical engineering and other sciences and skills and, at the request of President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, helped survey what would become the District of Columbia.
From 1792 to 1802, he assembled and wrote an almanac that became a best-seller. One edition included letters that Banneker and Jefferson exchanged in which Banneker took that founding father to task for owning black slaves and Jefferson replied that he hoped the lot of black people would improve in time.
Andrea Pinkney, of New York, reprints the letters and tells the story in plain style suitable for reading to small children or for reading by smart little kids who have already learned to read. The illustrations by the author's husband, Brian Pinkney, are scratchboard renderings colored with oil paints and are beautiful indeed.
* * *
Lynne Cherry lives in the Catoctins in mountainous Western Maryland, but this book, one of many she has produced for children, celebrates "the natural beauty of Texas," mainly the flat semi-desert in West Texas between San Antonio and Lubbock. (You could roll a bowling ball from one city limit of Lubbock to the other.) Her story -- which she also illustrated in panoramic color, stars an armadillo from Amarillo (named Sasparillo but occasionally called plain Armadillo in the text). This cute little devil (of the family Dasypodidae) sets out to see the world on foot but soon meets a golden eagle that gives him a ride on her back. They fly up to a space shuttle and get taken aboard, and then, of course, they can really see the whole world as the blue globe swathed in clouds we have all seen repeatedly on television.
In an author's note, Ms. Cherry notes that, of course, they couldn't really fly up and be taken aboard a space shuttle. Neither could an armadillo write postcards as Sasparillo is shown doing, but who cares? This is a "green" environmental book. Some of Ms. Cherry's previous books have won environmental awards. So we don't ask rude questions. This reviewer, once a reluctant camper in West Texas, does note that the rattlesnakes, copperheads and tarantulas are missing from her new book's pretty pictures. But she does show most of the other animal life that flourishes in the Lone Star state.
John Goodspeed writes from the Eastern Shore.